Since the release of the 3800 series last year, we've been
waiting for AMD to introduce both the lower and upper end of their product
line. The Radeon HD 3870 and HD 3850 are good values, and today we see the low
end of the market get a much needed update. We still have to wait a short while
to talk about new high end hardware, but hopefully AMD will be able to pull out
something that puts them back in competition there.

While the lack of attention to the high end from AMD might
not impact most graphics hardware buyers directly, the high end market does
represent high margins and the battle between NVIDIA and AMD for leadership can
be quite entertaining to watch at times. On top of that, high end hardware
enables engine developers to test techniques and ideas on what will inevitably
be future low end hardware. We really hope AMD gets back in the game soon for
the sake of advancing the industry.

For now, we don't have low end hardware so we can't do any
performance comparisons right now. AMD has promised a very hard launch, so the
delay between now and when we will see a performance review should be
relatively short. In the meantime we'll take a look at the hardware specs and
new technologies that are part of the 3600 and 3400 series parts.

Thanks for that article. I would love to see you guys pushing these cards at 2560x1600 resolution when decoding a H.264 or VC-1 to see if they are powerful enough to manage 1600p. I think that AMD put out in their press release that the 3450 will have hiccups at 1440p but that the 3470 will be able to manage that resolution just fine. Can we please please (pretty please) see if these card will handle decoding at that resolution? Reply

First of all, yesterday on dailytech the sister site to this one, in the daily reviews section are websites already reviewing the HD3870X2 card and it showing in most benchmarks a noticeable lead of the top nvidia card.

Second, if ATI gives anandtech a card to test last, who can blame them. I mean after all they published a review on the phenom that was more a rant than a review on the cpu. I say up the ra to the editors and writers at anand. I come here for a good laugh from time to time, but reading your articles for the last few months has me rating you in the same class as gizmodo and what they did at CES 2008. Hope you all go back to journalistic basics and become a reputable site like Tom's Hardware again one day. Reply

I say up the ra to the editors and writers at anand. I come here for a good laugh from time to time, but reading your articles for the last few months has me rating you in the same class as gizmodo and what they did at CES 2008. Hope you all go back to journalistic basics and become a reputable site like Tom's Hardware again one day.
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I'm also curious how these cards will compete with the current Nvidia low and mid range cards. Until the G92 refresh hits those segments, it looks like ATI will be leading those markets.

Also, the 3870 X2 utilizes internal crossfire. Games do not need crossfire compatibility to run on the 3870 X2. The card appears as a single GPU to the OS. There are already reviews for the 3870 X2, and it looks as though ATI has taken the crown in a few benchmarks. Reply

I'm looking forward to how these actually handle HD playback. I stayed away from the 2400 in my HTPC because the benchmarks said it wasn't quit powerful enough for HD playback.
If the $50 3450 can handle H.264 playback at HDTV resolutions with no issues I can skip the $250 SageTV HD extender and use that money for the new Hauppage HD capture card and one of these instead. Reply

Do these cards REALLY need active cooling? Judging by the size of the heatsink and fan, and the size of heatsinks on other cards that have been replaced with passive cooling, it doesn't seem like these cards would actually need to be actively cooled.

I may be wrong, of course, since conjectures based off of one chart and a few pictures are often wrong. But if the 3650 performs well (I'm currently running a 7600GS, it should definitely be an upgrade) and a silent version is produced, I may have a new card. Reply